Once everyone else was up and we'd had breakfast we left Varanasi for Bodhgaya which is where Lord Buddha first became enlightened. On the way we stopped in Sarnath which is the location where Buddha gave his first official sermon. We visited a temple and museum in Sarnath before moving on. We reached Bodhgaya in the evening we there was really only time for dinner before I passed out from a long day.
The next day we got up before breakfast and visited the main temple in Bodhgaya which is built in the sight that Buddha first sat until we received enlightenment, he then returned to that point several times in his life. Bodhgaya is also home to many other temples built by different countries with significant Buddhist populations. Unfortunately all the other temples were on strike due to power cuts so we couldn't visit. When Bodhgaya is probably more important to the Buddhist population as a whole than Dharmsala, it was the latter that felt more spiritual and peaceful. It felt like Bodhgaya had become too much of a tourist destination and that feeling overpowered the feeling of a religious destination.
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| The temple built for Buddha in Sarnath. |
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| To the right of the temple in Sarnath there is a tree that's a third generation descendant of the original fig tree that Buddha sat under before enlightenment. |
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| The cousin of the tree in Sarnath, this tree is also a third generation descendant but it actually stands in the same place the original fig tree did in Bodhgaya. |
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| The side of the Bodhgaya temple. |
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